


Mercy

by Run



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Advice, Drinking, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 22:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12022821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Run/pseuds/Run
Summary: “Am I just supposed to let him go?” Magnus asked. “Unscathed and lose in the world? After everything he’s done?”“He’s lost everything,” Julia reminded him. “His power, his home, his dignity. He’s never going to recover from this.” She felt her throat tighten as she looked at her sweet man’s skeptical face. “And I don’t think you’d recover from passing down a death sentence.”_The night Governor Kalen is defeated, Magnus finds himself with a choice to make. And only one person he trusts to be his council.





	Mercy

The night they captured Kalen, all the ale in Raven’s Roost flowed like water. With the fall of the blockade and the detention of their foe, the rebellion erupted in a cheer without end.  It’s seemed the entire city walked with a frosty mug in hand and a smile on its' face. The taverns echoed with the songs of victory and it felt like every street was lit with some form of celebration or another.

Magnus and Julia, co leaders of the successful insurgence, were heralded as heroes and drank to befit their title. They didn’t make it home until the wee hours of the morning, and even then it was a stumbling, giddy stagger to the door.

Julia kissed her man soundly, promising him a night of triumphant passion. However, upon the instant of seeing their bed, the both of them passed out fully clothed.

Julia woke up hours later, disoriented, groggy and cold. She flung her arm to Magnus’ side, fumbling for a share of the covers when she realized she was in the bed alone. She opened her bleary eyes to confirm her investigations, revealing her beloved to be standing at the open window of their bedroom. Julia could hear the faint, lingering commotion of the celebration’s remnants, though she knew it had to be nearly dawn.

“Magnus?” She murmured but he didn’t seem to hear her.

Julia sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The beginnings of a headache knocked at her temples but she ignored it. She’d break out her father’s patented hangover cure in the morning if need be. There were more important matters at hand.

Magnus didn’t flinch when Julia wrapped her arms around him, but he didn’t speak either. He put his hand over hers and kept staring out the window, his mouth pressed together in a thin line.

“Magnus-?” Julia asked again.

“I’m going to sentence him tomorrow,” Magnus rasped. Julia couldn’t tell if he was hoarse from a lack of sleep or an abundance of thought but she suspected it was the latter. She tightened her embrace.

“And how do you feel about that, beloved?” She asked.

Magnus shuddered in her arms, eyes still on the lights of Ravens Roost below. “I know they, the city, they want to see him punished. And part of me- part of me wants to hurt him. Wants him gone. But I can’t-“ He turned around to face her and Julia could see the redness of his eyes, the tears still damp on his cheek. “The only people I’ve ever killed had swords in their hands, and a plan to kill me in their minds.”

They had spoken about it, the price of Ravens Roost’s freedom, but only rarely. The countless faceless soldiers who remained loyal to Kalen, the guards they had to cut down to save their home. The rebellion could never be called a bloodbath but Julia remembered the eyes of every man she had killed. She knew Magnus had the same memory burned into him.

“Julia,” he said, voice cracking under a strain she couldn’t imagine. “I can’t sentence a man to die. Not like that. To think he’s sitting there, waiting, _knowing_ -“

Julia raised a gentle hand and brushed Magnus’ cheek with the backs of her fingers. Kalen was being kept in a holding cell until daybreak when Magnus would bring him before the people and decide his fate. They hadn’t had time to discuss it. So much of the rebellion was careful thought and planning but some things can’t be strategic.

“Kalen did terrible things to us,” Julia said. “To our loved ones. To our home.”

She paused. She wanted to find the right words, to pull them out of the little air between them but all she found were Magnus’ anxious eyes. It was enough, and Julia continued.

“The rebellion wasn’t started so we could watch Kalen burn,” she said quietly. “It was started so we could be free. And we are, my love.”

Magnus kissed her hand as it passed his lips and sighed quietly.  

“And maybe-“ Julia ran her fingers through his hair, along the scar just behind his ear. Gods, she was glad this was over. “Maybe that’s enough. This is has gone on for so long and maybe now is the time for mercy over retribution.”

“Am I just supposed to let him go?” Magnus asked. “Unscathed and lose in the world? After everything he’s done?”

“He’s lost everything,” Julia reminded him. “His power, his home, his dignity. He’s never going to recover from this.” She felt her throat tighten as she looked at her sweet man’s skeptical face. “And I don’t think you’d recover from passing down a death sentence.”

Without a word, Magnus pulled her against his chest. He smelled like whiskey and bonfire smoke, like the end of a celebration. Julia longed for the day that he would once again smell like sawdust and lacquer and home. But she could feel the warm, soft circles his hands made on her back, and the tightness in her throat relaxed all the same.

“You were given this responsibility for a reason,” she whispered into his skin. “They all trust you to make the right decision. Whatever it is.”

 Magnus kissed the top of her head and over his shoulder Julia could see the first flecks of sunlight on the sky. “Dawn,” she said. She pulled back to look at her man. His jaw was set the way it always was when a decision sat on the horizon. “What do you think, sweet thing?”

“I think,” Magnus said as he walked his beloved to their bedroom door. “I want to see the look in his eyes when we let him go.”


End file.
